Inaugural Address
of
Governor
E. Willis Wilson

March 4,1885

Fellow Citizens: That West Virginia is destined, in the near
future, to the prosperity and power of a great State, is no longer
problematical. It but requires that we shall be alive to our public
and private duties, prompt in the protection of our own interests
and true to ourselves.

The kind hand of nature has left her mountains, hills and
valleys teeming with the most important and valuable elements of
wealth. Within no State or Territory of this Union - within no
other area of 24,000 square miles upon which the foot of civilized
man has ever rested - are to be found such varied and exhaustless
natural resources as here harbinger the dawning of brighter and
better days. Incomparable in these, she stands without a rival.

The State's Material Resources

In the very heart of the 58,550 square miles of the Appalachian
Coal Field, we have 16,000 square miles within our own borders. Its
many seams, lying above water level, and exposed in the mountain
sides in thousands of places, can be mined cheaper than in any
other portion of this matchless coal tract. Recognized as superior
to any other coals in America, with the exception of anthracite,
they are of every variety necessary to the arts and
manufactures.

Although, from causes not now of difficult solution, this
immeasurable basis of wealth has, until the past few years, invited
in vain the active energies of capital and labor, yet breasting
every obstacle, with a steady and rapid progress, we not only rank,
to-day, amongst the largest of the coal-producing States, but the
employment of 6,400 persons in and about the mines, and a
production of 2,805,500 tons of coal for the year 1883, being an
increase of nearly 33 percent over the next preceding year, present
the cheering and unmistakable assurance of the prosperity awaiting
us in this important business, if our people but move with a firm
and steady step for their own protection and industrial safety.

In every county throughout the range of this wonderful coal
formation are those iron ores "which belong to, and are found in,
the Appalachian coal measures, consisting of brown oxides,
carbonites and black bands, and, in some places, nodular red
hematites," while the whole tier of counties lying east of the coal
section, and along the entire eastern border of the State, is
within the immense brown and red hematite belt of the Atlantic
Commonwealths.

Nearly two-thirds of the State's surface is yet covered with the
originals, composed, in the main, of hard woods of magnificent
growth and quality, the oak, poplar, walnut, cherry, sycamore, ash,
chestnut and locust attaining a size unsurpassed east of the Rocky
mountains.

Dr. John P. Hale, probably the best authority in the State upon
the subject, says: "Rich as is West Virginia in coal, iron, timber
&ampc., she is scarcely less rich in that indispensable
necessity to human health and comfort, and to animal life - common
salt. Fossil, or rock salt, has not been found in the State, but
salt brines of greater or less strength, and in greater or less
abundance, are found by artesian borings, at greater or less depth,
throughout the Appalachian coal field, which underlies the greater
portion of our State."

Add to these the agricultural, stock-raising and wool-growing
advantages of a generous soil and mild and healthful climate, and
West Virginia offers the absolute guarantee of a fair and
profitable return for brain, brawn and capital.

Transportation

But why is it that, possessing all these splendid resources and
natural advantages, located within easy distance of the Atlantic
seaboard, and surrounded by populous and thrifty States, our
development has been so limited and retarded? Why is it that
capital, avoiding, has turned from us to seek investment in regions
more distant and less favored? Why is it, that the tide of
immigration has swept over and beyond us, to a more Western
locality, to engage in the up- building of great and prosperous
States? Why is it, that there are so few lateral railroads
connecting with our trunk lines, and reaching back, into the
interior of the State, to those fields of untold, yet undeveloped
wealth?

There is a reason for these things just as certain as there is a
cause for every effect. Is it because we have not invited and
protected capital? The history of our legislation demonstrates the
reverse. Is it because the immigrant has been offered no
encouragement to choose his home amongst us? The hand of a generous
and hospitable people has ever been extended. Is it because of
unfriendly railroad legislation? In no State of the Union can there
be found such liberal, and even prodigal, enactments as our
statutes present upon this subject.

Of the half-dozen trunk line railways controlling the internal
commerce of the United States between the East and West, two of
them - the Baltimore & Ohio, and the Chesapeake & Ohio -
pass through our State. The one, for nearly half a century, and the
other, for fifteen years, have traversed our domain.

With a full appreciation of the extent of the statement, I
declare here, that the constant and unrelenting practice of these
two companies, by rebates, drawbacks and special contracts, in
discriminating against our people in freight and passenger charges,
in the interest of the Western States and Territories, has done
more to discourage immigration, the investment of capital, the
construction of lateral railroads into the interior, and the
development of the State's resources, than all other causes
combined. I assert furthermore, that had they in the exercise of
the franchises and privileges conferred upon them by the
munificence of our law-making power, dealt with our people with
simple, even-handed justice, the State of West Virginia would, this
day, be one of the most prominent of the States in population,
wealth and material prosperity.

Railroad Discrimination

What encouragement do they offer to agriculture in exacting from
us twenty-five to fifty percent more for carrying a carload of
grain from West Virginia to the Eastern market, than from a Western
State? What to the stock-raiser in charging, for instance, $40 for
a carload of cattle from Ohio and $60 from West Virginia to the
same market? What to the manufacturer with the same character of
discriminations against him both East and West? What to the
immigrant, when, added to these disadvantages of location, he
ascertains the fact that immigrant tickets are not sold nor
immigrant trains run for West Virginia, and if he desire to stop
there, on his journey from an Eastern city, he must pay more than
is required to convey him hundreds of miles still farther West?
What to the capitalist, who may desire to invest his funds in the
construction of a lateral railroad into the interior of the State
from one of these through lines, when he knows that beside all
these embargoes, the business of his road, if constructed, must
continually be subservient tot he will of the trunk lines in the
capricious or avaricious arrangement of freight rates and
charges?

Not only are these ruinous discriminations made as against our
whole people in the interest of States East and West, but the same
methods are applied to particular localities and particular persons
within our own State, thus controlling at will the entire business
and industrial interests of the State.

The turnpike has long ago ceased to be more than a road for
local travel and traffic, while railroads have become the real
arteries and highways of State and continental commerce. They
occupy a position far beyond the boundaries of mere private
enterprise, and every consideration of public policy and the
general welfare demands their regulation and control by just and
reasonable laws.

Railroad Monopolists

It is no longer a question whether the State has the power to
remedy these hurtful and pernicious evils. The judicial mind has
reached forth and grasped the problem, in all its bearings, and
declared, in unmistakable terms, that railroad corporations are
created for public purposes; that they are the servants of the
people; that their roads are public highways, and that the right to
control them and regulate their freight and passenger charges
within, and, in the absence of Congressional legislation, from
points within to points without; and from points without to points
within, the State, is a necessary sovereign power of government
that can neither be bartered nor given away by State
legislation.

We may be told to wait for Congress to act. We have already
waited many years, and relief is still denied. The House of
Representatives, following the lead of the broad-minded, noble and
intrepid Texan, has again and again passed reasonable, just and
salutary measures, only to suffer defeat in the Senatorial end of
the Capitol where the demands of the public are seldom hear and
corporate monopoly reigns supreme.

This is no new subject to our people; they passed directly upon
it in 1872, when, by their vote, they declared by their
Constitution that,

"Railroads heretofore constructed, or that may hereafter be
constructed, in this State, are hereby declared public highways,
and shall be free to all persons for the transportation of their
persons and property thereon, under such regulations as shall be
prescribed by law; and, the Legislature shall, from time to time,
pass laws applicable to all railroad corporations in the State,
establishing reasonable maximum rates of charges for the
transportation of passengers and freights, and providing for the
correction of abuses, the prevention of unjust discriminations
between through and local, or way, freight and passenger tariffs,
and for the protection of the just rights of the public; and shall
enforce such laws by adequate penalties."

He Defines His Position

Many States have similar constitutional provisions, and have
applied the statutory remedy without hesitation or evasion. None
need it so sorely as we, as none are discriminated against so
mercilessly. I stand by this constitutional command in its every
line and syllable, and shall, in the future, as I have in the past,
give freely whatever assistance I can, that it may be obeyed in
letter and in spirit.

We assure, most cheerfully, every protection to railroad
corporations that we secure to ourselves. We would not do them
injustice in one single particular, nor place one obstacle in the
way of their legitimate success. We will ever be ready to encourage
and assist them in all their lawful undertakings. But having given
them corporate existence, with all their powers and privileges, for
the benefit of our own citizens, we demand that our lands shall no
longer be used as a mere pathway for the commerce of the West; that
their franchises shall not be applied as so many instruments to
hinder our development and delay our prosperity; that our people
shall receive the same consideration and fair dealing accorded to
those of neighboring States; that there shall be no greater charge
for freight or passengers for a shorter than a longer distance, in
the same direction, and that for all persons there shall be the
same facilities and the same price for like services by the
abolition and prevention of every species of extortion and
discrimination.

We shall insist, also, in common justice to all tax-paying
persons, natural and corporate, that the unlawful evasion of taxes
by the Chesapeake & Ohio, and the Baltimore & Ohio railroad
companies, so long and so successfully practiced in the past, shall
not be repeated; and that they shall pay their taxes for the
support of government - State, county and district - fully, and
without compromise, just the same as all others are required to
do.

It is to be hoped, too, that our Legislature will enact such
laws as may be necessary to effectually prohibit the distribution
of railroad passes to public officers, and members of political
conventions, concerning which this State has not escaped experience
of an exceedingly instructive nature.

Federal Relations

But, fellow citizens, weighty as are all the interesting
questions relating directly to the material development and
financial prosperity of the State, it is of vastly more importance
to the great body of the people that our political institutions be
preserved in all their purity, simplicity, strength and vigor, and,
to this end, that we shall ever hold in view the self-evident
truths, that, "free government and the blessings of liberty can be
preserved to any people only by a firm adherence to justice,
moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by a frequent
recurrence to fundamental principles"; and that "eternal vigilance
is the price of liberty," as truly and as certainly in times of
peace, as when the lowering clouds of war are obscuring the
sun-light of freedom, the passions of man run mad, and civil
authority has been subordinated to the iron hand of military
power.

Possessed, as we are, of the best form and system of government
ever devised by the wisdom of man, or consecrated by patriot blood,
so rests upon us the gravest responsibility ever assumed by any
people, to preserve inviolate the priceless inheritance, that it
may pass from our hands as it came from the fathers, a blessing to
posterity in ages yet to come.

A Federal Government for Federal purposes, and State Governments
for home rule. Combining in unity, by written, organic law, all
those specifically delegated powers of the respective States,
indispensable in our dealings and intercourse with foreign nations,
and such other limited powers, only, as for the general welfare,
are necessary to be exercised internally, the acme of the science
of free government has been attained in creating the United States
of America - the grandest political organization upon the face of
the earth - while reserving to the people and to the States
respectively, guaranteed against the dangers of centralization and
consolidation, the inestimable and exclusive right of local
self-government.

The Right Of Self-Government

From the earliest days of Colonial history until the present
hour the liberty-loving American, with an unchanging and unswerving
fidelity, has maintained this reserved right of local self-
government as the true, if not the only reliable and perfect
safe-guard to the institutions of our country. It was for this that
thirteen independent colonies, with the free offering pledge of
life, of fortune and of sacred honor, united in one common cause to
resist a common danger, repel a common enemy, and establish the
independence of these States. It was because of its jealous regard
that the old articles of confederation were but "a rope of sand,"
and the Constitution of the United States lay hopelessly stranded
upon public disfavor, until the guarantee had come from almost
every State, from Massachusetts to the Carolinas, (a guarantee that
was promptly fulfilled by the adoption of the first ten
amendments), that the omission of a bill of rights should be
supplied, and all undelegated powers reserved by affirmative
declaration.

The creation, by organic law, of the three departments of
government - legislative, judicial and executive - as a barrier
against encroachment, providing that they should be separate,
distinct and coordinate, was an immense advance over all other
forms and experiments for the security and perpetuation of free
government; but for a further and more potential security, through
the wisdom, the patriotism and the love of human freedom, that
actuated, moved and directed the founders of the Republic, that
vast residuum of undelegated powers was carefully reserved to the
States and to the people.

That the Federal Government conceived, fashioned and created in
and by delegated powers alone, should remain entirely within the
sphere of its political action, as prescribed by the Constitution
of the United States, is as vitally essential to the preservation
of our governmental system, as that the States should refrain from
attempting a reclamation of those powers delegated and surrendered
by the adoption of that instrument.

Upon this fundamental principle of local self-government, rests
the entire fabric of American institutions. Once destroyed, whether
through the violence of civil commotion, or, possibly, the yet more
dangerous though insidious encroachments of legislative and
judicial implications, and free government, upon this continent,
will cease to be, as surely as ambition is still aggressive; as
surely as the history of recorded time presents no Democratic or
Republican form of government that has survived the invasions of a
single, central law-making power.

American Patriotism

Imbedded in our constitutional history, and standing out in bold
relief through the stern letter of the law, it was the plain object
and purpose of the founders that there should be a Union of States
for the protection of States.

Trusting to an American patriotism, as broad and deep as the
love of human liberty, we can believe, with an unshaken and
unfaltering confidence, that in the onward march of coming
centuries, when star after star of equal magnitude and of equal
glory, shall have been received into the radiant constellation,
beaming forth in transcendent splendor from the blue field of the
banner of the Republic, and millions upon millions more shall have
joined the expanding population of this broad land, that there
shall still be standing, in imposing grandeur, this everlasting
bulwark against monarchy and despotism - an imperishable Union of
imperishable States - where a free press, free speech, free
conscience and a free people, under the blessings and guidance of
the great Ruler of the Universe, shall have advanced the conquering
ensign of human civilization of the uttermost possibilities of
physical, mental, moral and religious achievement. In such a
trust,

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!
Sail on, O Union strong and great!
Humanity, with all its fears,
With all the hopes of future years,
Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

And now, Mr. President, contemplating with unfeigned solicitude,
the duties and responsibilities of the high position to which I
have been called, I am ready to take upon myself the oath of
office.